Donald Trump has again highlighted his tariff policy against China, speculating that Europe can bring an end to the Ukraine war by sanctioning Beijing. He emphasized that China is "the biggest buyer of Russian oil by far."
In an interview with Fox News, when asked, "Did you tell UK PM Starmer that Europe should put sanctions on India and China too?" Trump highlighted his administration’s tariff measures.
He labelled America's 50 per cent duty on India as "big step" and said about China, “Well, if they put sanctions on China the Ukraine war would end. China is the biggest buyer of Russian oil by far and I think they have other powers over Russia too."
This is despite continued tensions in world trade between the world's two largest economies. China responded fiercely to Washington's efforts to persuade its NATO allies to impose significant sanctions on Beijing between 50 and 100 percent in response to China being behind funding Russia and supporting it in improving its capacity in the war in Ukraine.
The previous day, Trump criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin, stating, "he's let me down."
Trump confessed he had expected to facilitate a breakthrough because of his "good relationship" with Putin but that the Russian president had not come through. “The one that I thought would be easiest would be because of my relationship with (Russia’s) President Putin, but he’s let me down, he’s really let me down. It was going to be Russia and Ukraine, but we’ll see how that turns out,” he said.
His dismay followed successive efforts to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia. In these, Trump had even invited Putin to Alaska to negotiate and subsequently received Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House. The negotiations did not come through as the fight escalated once more.
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